I have me brave women who are exploring the outer edge of human possibility, with no history to guide them, and with a courage to make themselves vulnerable that I find moving beyond words.
Gloria SteinemRead
I do not like to write - I like to have written.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote expresses a common struggle with the writing process, highlighting the difference between actually writing and the satisfaction of completed work.
Gloria Steinem encapsulates the feeling many writers experience—dreading the act of writing itself, yet cherishing the joy and fulfillment that comes with having completed a piece of work. This dichotomy speaks to the challenges of creative expression, where the journey often feels arduous, but the end result is rewarding.
Themes
WritingProcessCreationSatisfactionStruggle
In practice
Example use cases
In a writing workshop to encourage fellow writers who may feel overwhelmed.
More from Gloria Steinem
All quotes →If women are supposed to be less rational and more emotional at the beginning of our menstrual cycle when the female hormone is at its lowest level, then why isn't it logical to say that, in those few days, women behave the most like the way men behave all month long?
Gloria SteinemRead
Age brings a freedom. When you're young, you're much more subject to the idea of what feminine is or how you should look or how you should behave.
Gloria SteinemRead
All those chemicals that create empathy only work when you are in a room together.
Gloria SteinemRead
Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning.
Gloria SteinemRead
Obviously, there is much similarity among the challenges of transgender people and all women - from health care to harassment to discrimination in the workplace.
Gloria SteinemRead
Similar quotes
If you interrupt the writing of fast narrative with too much introspection and self-criticism, you will be lucky if you write 500 words a day and you will be disgusted with them into the bargain. By following my formula, you write 2,000 words a day and you aren’t disgusted with them until the book is finished, which will be in about six weeks.
Ian FlemingRead
And there was that poor sucker Flaubert rolling around on his floor for three days looking for the right word.
Dorothy ParkerRead
This grant gave me more than memories; it gave me a crucial experience that is formative to all writers: the ability to perceive that we become writers in exile, where what we write is the only link across distance and time…I became a Maryland writer because the community of Juneau took me in.
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I think a lot of the dull parts of first drafts come from a kind of over-managing, intrusive writer who wants to direct traffic. The idea of taking out the parts that the reader could infer is very liberating, and it's weirdly part of radicalizing your work: it allows you to go to new places fast.
Meg WolitzerRead
A man who publishes his letters becomes a nudist - nothing shields him from the world's gaze except his bare skin. A writer, writing away, can always fix things up to make himself more presentable, but a man who has written a letter is stuck with it for all time.
E. B. WhiteRead
I consider the process of gestation just as important as when you're actually sitting down putting words to the paper.
Wole SoyinkaRead